I got the impression from some of the comments that it looks like the design team is randomly picking different issues to address, and that a more comprehensive approach to designing Lotus Notes might be more fruitful. I can understand why these blog postings might give you the impression that the team is "hunting and pecking" at various issues. I tend to post questions about the various design issues that we're encountering on a day to day basis, however, I want to assure that we've got a more holistic approach.

We started with the statements from DNUG 2005 (Deutsche Notes User Group):

§“Hannover” will deliver a world class user experience in mail, calendar, and contact management, and new capabilities such as activity management and composite applications through its use of IBM Workplace Client Technology."

§The design team operationalized the "world class user experience" statement by dividing it into 4 areas:

Visual Style is all about the visual design, and creating a visual system that is applied consistently across an entire product set.

§Usefulness is about day-to-day use, and supporting Samantha in getting her tasks done. It's about capability, and task flow. It's about being task centric, not tool centric.

§Innovation is about setting the pace, and changing the game. It's about leading, rather than following

§Execution is about attention to detail; it's about meticulous execution on the finer points, an emphasis on delighting Samantha with the experience, and avoiding dissatisfaction.

Most of the postings here have to do with "Usefulness" and "Execution." This is due to the nature of the other two areas, and to the nature of a blog. Certainly Lotus Notes could use some new visual style, and you know that we are working on that. You've seen several different looks at various conferences. We're leaving most of the visual style issues up to the visual designers, informed by feedback from several controlled focus-group type exercises. And the innovation area still has many topics that are IBM confidential, so I'm clearly not at liberty to write about those.

That leaves "usefulness", and one of the main things we learn from this blog is how different organizations use Notes in different ways. We supplement this information, of couse, through the surveys and a few site visits. You've given us some great feedback on the usefulness of some proposed features (and proposed cuts).

The bulk of my postings have been about execution. I think this is because of the nature of a blog. I can take one small issue, craft a question supported by a few pictures, and gather feedback. Quite frankly, I also think that "execution" in user experience details is an Achilles Heel for Notes. It is not known for attention to user experience details, and our development process and culture did not, in the past, reward such attention. But things are changing, and feedback from this blog is helping. Thanks!

In my last posting, I detailed how the design team operationalized the expression "world-class user experience."

In addition to trying to achieve that blanket statement, each Lotus Notes release has certain themes. Here are the themes of the "Hannover" release, as agreed upon by product management, design, and engineering:

A new user experience that incorporates usability enhancements and overall ease of use gains for customers

§Improvements in Mail and Calendaring & Scheduling to support enterprise organizations

§Significant improvements in Contact Management

§Integration with real-time Collaboration throughout the entire user experience

§“Activities” model that extends collaboration in context of user activities

Lotus Notes allows users to choose what to do when they click on a URL in Notes. The choices in Notes 7 include:

The Notes browser

Notes with Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer

Netscape Navigator

Other (Firefox, Mozilla, etc)

I must admit that I have limited experience with the Notes browser, because the first thing I always did was change that setting to use Internet Explorer (and more recently, Firefox). (The first release of Sametime did, I think, have the Sametime Online Meeting room run in the Notes browser. Well, at least, those early versions of the meeting room ran in a Notes tab. It might not have been the Notes browser.)

We are planning to drop support of the Notes browser in the Hannover release. We are also going to add "Firefox" as a "real" choice, not just a lowly "other".

I sincerely hope that any comments to this announcement are in the category of "yeah, whatever, we do not rely on the Notes Browser," because that is the impression that I've gotten. But, that's why I have this blog. If any of you rely on the Notes browser rather than the other choices, now is the time to start planning what to do. If any of you MUST still have it, now is the time to make your empassioned plea for us to keep it.

(And regarding how Samantha GETS to edit those internet browser choices... from the Location document....TECHNOLOGICALLY that is not going to change, but we are trying tomake the entire locations stuff available from the preferences.)

Here's an update on what we plan to do with the whole embedded browser thing.

Samantha will always use the WMC browser application (rather than the Notes embedded browser) when she clicks a URL. WMC = Workplace Managed Client = the java wrapper. See Jeff Eisen's posting for more details about where Java ends and basic Notes begins.

Samantha will set a preference from her Hannover "unified preferences" preferences for whether to use the embedded browser or the browser that she set as her default browser. The embedded browser will give her the following:

IE on Windows

Firefox on Linux

Safari on a Mac

Her preferences might look a bit like this:

Now, this means that we no longer allow you to set a different browser per location. What say you? Based on the earlier responses, it looks like everybody really just wanted to use their "default browser" and that's it, regardless of location.

So, last, For those die-hard Domino designer types who love to set a different default browser for testing, here is the (somewhat overcomplicated, if you ask me) plan for you:

We'll detect if Domino Designer is installed. If yes, you still set your default browser as per above, but when you are in Designer, and you pick the menu item to "preview in browser", we respect the setting you have made in your location document. This means that, for "Samantha", we hide that "internet Browser" tab in the location document now. But for you savvy types, we show it.

You probably remember that a while ago I asked you about your use of PDA's. In addition to the responses we recevied on this blog, the user research team has been gathering data during various customer visits. Here are our collated results. Thank you for your response, and keep those channels of communication open! (and yes, I WILL post about the redesign of Locations soon!)

Summary and some good quotes:

Company use:

What is the current % of use of PDAs at your company? 1 respondent said they had over 4000 Blackberry users, but gave no %

3 said 100%

4 said 50%

14 said between 10 -35%

9 said under 10%

In many cases, even if the % was small, it was critical for that segment of the company - for execs, field workers, lawyers who needed and were expected to have 24-hour availability

Are there any company policies that restrict usage to certain job levels or roles?

Unless the company is 100% using them, more high-level managers and salespeople in the field use them.

In many firms, if you can justify the need for one and it's in budget, you get one.

Is there a push to get people onto these devices?

Again, this varies by company, but most people said that there didn't need to be a push because so many people were requesting to use them.

In one or two companies, they are trying to cut down on usage.

Do you see shift coming in the next year toward this?

Most said yes. Some said they had already seen the shift. There is clearly a big upswing in PDA usage

"Yes. I see us going towards the one employee, one PDA as we went to one employee one laptop and one person one mobile phone."

"Different devices, totally different purposes. PDA should be focused on single tasks that I can do quickly and accessible using one hand."

" depends where i am - prefer my wireless laptop in my office"

" more accessible - unfortunately"

"Some Blackberry users tend to do more and more on that device instead of their laptop. One non-technical co-worker of mine did Lotusphere without his laptop for instance."

Does the ability to sync data to a PDA lessen the amount of printing you do?

Most said they did not notice a difference in printing. Some, because they never printed their calendars anyway and some because they always like to print calendars.

One respondent made a plea not to get rid of printing in Hannover...

*** Please don't let an increased PDA population be used support any temptation to "cheap-out" on printing support / features in Hannover. ***

Other comments:

"huge benefit for me.. as I'm only part of the time in the office, and I wouldn't even know where my nearest printer is"

"I usually don't print schedules in the first place, but I do look at my PDA calendar a lot more than my PC." (a few people noted that they saw more of a difference in the use of the PC or laptop because it was easier to log into their PDA than boot up just to see calendar or contact info)

"Absolutely not!"

"Absolutely."

"No difference."

"I've never heard of PDAs having anything to do with printing"

"Yes -execs used to have their calendars printed for them every a.m. and faxed throughout day to have an up to the minute schedule. Now they have that on their Blackberry and don't need printouts"

Other comments:

"Mary, I'm glad you are so open to listening on the PDA front. It's a killer app in terms of the competition. If I tell IBMers that EasySync is awful (it is and I've used it for over 5 years), they shrug and point out that there are other commercial apps. I find the commercial apps appropriate for sites that invest in an organization-wide PDA plan. Unfortunately, most of the PDA/SmartPhone usage that I see, is with individuals who are trying to tough it out on their own. Well, maybe not most—maybe 50/50. I think it is an unbelievable oversight that Notes doesn't include the synchronization software equal to that which is available for Outlook."

" As you are asking, I'll mention that everyone who has used Outlook is quite unhappy with EasySync. Due to the nature of the people who have PDAs, it is a relevant problem for the future of Lotus Notes in the companies we work with. We have some customers with mNotes but, usually, they find that solution too expensive (partly because of the low number of PDA users)."

"What I would like my smartphone/pda to do is be able to sync remotely. - If I'm asked to go to a meeting I should be able to accept/reject/reschedule the meeting - Being able to sync with the journal.nsf would be useful too and since that can be stored in the mail file it would be nice to be able to do that remotely too."

"Would be nice to have it built into Domino; Exchange offers such a feature and in Domino you need to buy additional 3rd party products"

"They are very important to our business as these staff need to be alerted to market changes and/or internal problems immediately and in detail. They fulfill a function alongside the large screen as a means of keeping in touch and being alerted to useful information. People also carry them around within the office to ensure they don't miss anything when away from their desk. The majority of usage is the pushing of emails which come from internal systems that users can subscribe to. "

"One of the biggest frustrations of Blackberrys is that they will only connect to the user's email, calendar and todo. The Windows Mobile devices (iMates etc) using mNotes allow you to connect to multiple mail accounts. This is very useful if you have centralised mail accounts that are accessed by several users in the office. The only real solution we've had until now is to forward all mail received at the central account to each user's mail file. If IBM could come up with a solution to that I'd be very pleased. In addition to this the mForms application from Commontime allows easy development of applications within Domino Designer to run on mobile devices."

OVERVIEW of Locations (and I'm vacation all next week, so no posting)In Hannover, Samantha Daryn (a design persona) will be able to:

Use a few simple locatoins (e.g. Online and Offline, Travel, and Home)

See all her old locations from Notes 7 if she had a bunch of custom ones, exept a few that we are consolidating (e.g. the 2 "home" ones)

Manage her locations in a comprehenisble way (from a spot off the menu tree as compared to Notes 7 where it is buried in the personal name and address book)

We will keep the Notes concept of "Locations" but reduce the number of them. OLD TERM New Term/mappingOffice (network) OnlineIsland (disconnected) OfflineTravel (notes direct dialup) Travel (should we remove?)Home (notes direct dialup) Home (should we remove?)Home (network dialup) <remove>Internet <remove>

Samantha will still see a "picklist" of locations in her status bar, and be abe to "Edit Current..." from there. (however, choosing Edit Current will bring up a dialog now).

We're simplifying the menus by changing "Mobile" to "Locations" and having fewer choices: Choosing "Switch to Location..." brings up the same dialog as "Choose Current Location" used to. Choosing "Manage Locations" brings up the following dialog:

And Choosing "New" or "Edit" brings up basically the following dialog (remember, we're now hiding the internet browser and the instant messaging tabs because they have preferences elsewhere):

Advanced users can still go to the Personal Name and Address book, and under "Advanced", get to the locations stuff.(We really wanted to find a way to hide it for basic users, but our plates are getting full with all the other stuff we're doing, so we're hoping that these changes above will at least get Samantha off to a better start.)

A few questions:1. Should we pare down to just 2 locations by default (online and offline) or go with the 4 listed above?2. What should we do about the "Edit Current Time/Date..." dialog, which used to be on the menus? It's this one: We could keep the menu item, Make it a tab in the "Edit Location" dialog, or invoke it from a button in the "Locations" preferences dialog. How many of your users still use that?

3. How important is it that we hide the Advanced stuff in the personal nab? Would having it still be there ruin any simplified experience? (of course, there are still things in the Advanced pernab that are not on this Locations redesign.)

Let's save the discussion of whether to keep the term "Locations" for another day. Thanks. I look forward to having LOTS of responses and opinions when I return from my week of vacation!

Here I am on vacation at the New Jersey Shore- Long Beach Island. It's a "family reunion" type vacation-- my husband and 5 (of his 7) siblings, their spouses, and kids. Plus grandma and grandpa. We're renting 5 cottages along the shore. It's beautiful. However, I had not been on "vacation" for more than 5 minutes before brother-in-law #1 said,"Hey! yesterday, this guy at work was swearing about everything he hates about Lotus Notes, and I told him, just wait! I'll be seeing my sister-in-law next week, and I'll tell her everything you said."

Then, brother-in-law #2 chimed in "Yeah, I have to use Lotus Notes on my new job!,"

So here I sit at the beach, doing "semi-contextual" research about the things they love and hate. It's kinda fun. I can hardly wait until Friday, when brother-in-law #3 arrives. He's a salesman for Microsoft. :)

Thank-you to all of you who took the time to read the big Locations posting and to write your comments. Wow.

As usual, many many good ideas, and keep them coming. I have read every single response.

Based on these responses, we'll have 3 locations by default (and yes, if Samantha had custom ones we'll keep them). I have to laugh. I ask you for 2 or 4... and you-all tell me 3 :).

Office

Offline

?? the other? "Internet" does not adequately describe the difference in user experience. What is the primary difference in user experience? Is it "direct connection/no firewall" or "maybe slower" I liked the person who suggested "VPN" (although that still does not suggest the difference to Samantha's actual experience).

I *DO* hear the gist of many of your postings-- since there are so many users, no one set of defaults will be usable by everybody. So we should try to make as much as possible configurable through user policy. Creating locations and setting their settings via policy--this is something that the admin team has wanted to do. It has teetered on the cusp of being in or out of the release (due to time, it's definitely a good idea). At the moment, it has teetered out.

Having a new client type and associated locations is a great idea. I'll bring it up and see how far I can take the idea for Hannover-- and certainly I"ll make sure it's in the feature request database if it does not get into Hannover.

Thanks again for all the comments... and by the way, I was able to keep "brother-in-law #3" from selling Outlook to my 2 other brothers-in-law over vacation. It certainly helped that one of them takes his laptop to the beach and works from all kinds of local replicas. :)

I've been thinking about the terms for the 3 "out of the box" locations. Some ideas:

OfficeNot office, but onlineOffline

orOfficeTravel/HomeOffline

orOfficeOther connectedDisconnected

I suppose we can add/use "internet", but I must admit, I've heard people say "but I connect to the internet when I'm at the office" so they get confused.

... and by the way, I"m writing this from my (relatively new) iMac, on which I'm running the Notes 7.0.2 beta, and I think it's looking very nice! I had nothing to do with any of the design for the 7.x releases, so this is a kudo to my predecessors. Thanks for your good work![Read More]

I'm preparing my session for the Lotus Advisor next week. I'll also be working in the lab there, hoping to get some feedback on a "pre-beta build."

My talk is on the "Hannover top ten" -- the top 5, really, the top 5 new features that other people are not covering in their talks, and the top 5 features on which I want design feedback. The top 5 design issues or features that I'll discuss aren't necessarily the top 5, they'll just be the top 5 that development is trying to finalize back at home the day I give the talk. I think that's just fine, because the timing of input is very important, and the folks at this conference will have an opportunity to influence the design-- and they and I will get to have a more in-depth conversation than this blog provides (but don't get me wrong, I am really appreciative of the feedback I get here). The talk will probably include my recent postings here about locations and the Welcome page (I'm working on that posting now), and I'm not sure what else yet.

I did a similar talk at DNUG (Deutsche Notes user Group) in May, but I don't want to ask for feedback on those same issues, because we've already made decisions based on the feedback we got at DNUG, and moved on with the design.

I'm standing on the "lab floor" of the Lotus Advisor conference, trying to write this entry in between giving demos of Hannover.

The time is coming for me to make some decisions about a "Getting Started" or "Welcome Page". Here are the options:

We use the current Lotus Notes Home Page mechanism in bookmarks.nsf. Some of the issues here are:

We'd put "getting started" information on what we call the "Setup" page (you have probably not seen this page in a long time), but users who have customized their home page (or who have set something else as their home page, like the Workspace), will not see such information. The current startup page from Notes 7 looks like this:

Should we change that so we FORCE users to see the new information? DO you want the ability to decide whether to force users to see that information? The information might be something like this; the content is subject to change

Option 2: We use Eclipse mechanism, whereby we have a separate tab for a "Getting Started" page, written in HTML. Users see it, and can close it, and then get back to it from the Help menu. It's totally separate from Bookmarks.nsf.

Users would see 2 separate tabs-- one for "Getting Started" and one for "Home"

If we supply this, we'll still provide the Home page stuff (note: We're making the terms consistent so that we always refer to it as the Home Page (rather than our current mix of Home Page and Welcome Page). So once Samantha closes the Getting started, she'll see the Notes Home Page.

Option 3: Forget about the idea of supplying any "Getting Started/Home page" information, just take users right to their mail (Or calendar).

I'm writing from the Phoenix airport, on my way home from the Lotus Advisor conference, where I had a successful (from my point of view) talk that asked for feedback about 5 design issues. I ended up not asking about the Home page one.

Thanks for all your comments about the Getting started. Sure sounds like most of you like the option of us supplying a separate html file that shows up as a tab, rather than using the existing Home page stuff (which will still be there.)

Regarding the content of the Getting Starting page, the example I showed mentioned ONLY "Framework" features on purpose. This is because first, there are plenty of new framework features to talk about and second, I was thinking, you might not apply the new mail/calendar/address book template. Maybe that's not good thinking on my part-- if the Getting Started is easy to modify, it doensn't really matter what IBM puts there, then, I guess because you can change it.

I've been toying with the idea that in addition to a Getting Started Page, IBM really do a good job spiffing up the "About this database" page and turn that "on" by default so that all users of the new mail template have to see a few pictures and a quick list of the important things like:

Unread messages are now BOLD, not red!

I want to take more of a "just-in-time" or "context-based approach to learning the new feautres-- Samantha won't sit down and watch a tutorial for longer than about 3 minutes, so I think we need to chunk up the info and put it in her face as she goes to use each of the revised templates or some other time-- not everything all at once. The "About this database " page is the easiest thing I can think of leveraging now.

The Hannover client will support some amount of theming through .css files. Jeff Eisen already mentioned it in his blog the other day. The theme variations are mainly color and button shape in "framework" parts like the tab row and status bar, and in views built with Java.

It is unclear right now whether we'll be able to fit in the ability to theme the Notes forms. Probably not.

For me, as a designer, this is exciting news. It means that an admin/app dev can make the Notes client basically use their company colors. We have several themes in our internal builds, although none of them are actually very different. I'm talking about the rich client --the Notes client--here, not just the web, just to be clear for Hynek.

So, if Mike Rhodin or someone makes a big deal about this at Lotusphere (or Fall DNUG), please react with the requisite excitement and enthusiasm. And if you happen to meet Matt Hatem at Lotusphere (or fall DNUG) buy him a beer (or a case or a barrel-- he especially likes microbrews), and thank him profusely, since he's the developer who implemented it